Some Important Paradoxes
I call myself a non-practicing Catholic because I am Catholic by formation, and I still acknowledge the lessons that it left in me.
Even with practice, paradoxes are uncomfortable things to live with, and I am not sure I would have learned to navigate them without Catholicism.
The first time I really wrestled with one was when my husband and I were arguing in the early days of our marriage. He was telling me that he was not responsible for my happiness. In reaction I said, “Why on Earth would I be married to you if you weren't?!” Neither of us was saying what we meant in that moment, but in navigating our failures in communication and the conflict between us, we came to understand that our life is full of paradoxes. Like responsibility and obligation. Like privilege and gift. Like being alone while being together.
I told a story a while ago about getting scammed in a mechanic’s shop. Or rather, someone’s attempt to scam me. The salesperson in charge of my account came to me as I paced with my toddler in a carrier and started pressuring me to approve additional work on my brakes. He claimed that the fluid in the brakes needed to be “reset.” I know enough about hydraulics to know that brakes don’t work that way. Especially not in a brand new van. I don't know if he knew he was lying. Maybe he was just incompetent. I said I had to pick up my older children from school, and I would look into it later. Then, he committed the cardinal sin of trying to imply that I was being negligent about my child’s safety, looking down at my youngest in the carrier. “Well don't you want him to be safe?”
Nope. I mentally reacted with an internal, “Fucker,” before I smiled, politely said “no,” asked for my van and left. By the way, Google voice bleeps it out when I say that in voice to text recording. Which is charming.
At a later date, when I had calmed down, I went back and talked to the management of the shop about it because I felt I had the privilege of knowing what I was talking about. I needed to speak up for the sake of everyone I know who has been pressured into unnecessary work because they never had the opportunity to learn what a gasket is. Someone with an allergy to the word privilege immediately wanted to lecture me about taking credit for my own knowledge and work.
I don't understand why anyone with a Catholic formation wouldn't wholeheartedly embrace the concept of privilege. It fits so perfectly as a practical application under the umbrella of grace. We work towards our salvation but we also have nothing which we have not received, if you believe your theology.
My husband and I have worked hard for our lives, and we have brought a lot of creativity and intelligence to the labor. We also know that no matter how hard we have worked, we have still received incredible generosity from life, the universe and everything. We know that we could have worked as hard as we wanted to and still not been as fortunate as we have been.
I had a father who taught me how to change a tire. I had a friend with access to a shop space who let me rebuild a carburetor and reattach a drive shaft while he was working there. I had a mechanics shop of brothers who let me change my oil in their garage which they absolutely should not have done thinking back about things like liability. Yes. I showed up and listened and learned and worked, but I also had the gift of time and making friends. I don’t actually understand looking at things like that and focusing on credit rather than gratitude.
My husband does take responsibility for my happiness by the way. And I take responsibility for his. We chose to weave our lives together. But at one point, what I wanted from him was beyond what he could possibly give. I wanted him to, not just live with, but also accommodate my nightmares and coping mechanisms. I wanted him to take on struggles that belonged to no one but me. He could not step into my brain and fight my battles for me. He did as much as he could to be present, and the rest had to be up to me.
My shortcut for this is that no one is required to drown while you decide to swim downwards. One of my favorite authors on the subject of relationships, KC Davis, has an even more vivid metaphor in her book “Who Deserves Your Love.” Paraphrasing her thought, “No one is required to light themselves on fire to keep you warm.”
The reason I had to talk about paradoxes is because in telling the story about my grandfather, in telling the story of coming to terms with my competence, in telling stories again and again throughout my writing, I have emphasized how much we need each other. Not just the community around us, but the people who have come before us. We need people. But I have also said that there are moments we end up alone anyway. No one could make the decision to face myself and my complicated internal infrastructure besides me.
Balancing out that paradox has been the work of a lifetime, and I see people end up alone because they are already alone in their own heads. They refuse to be vulnerable to others and don’t know how to be at peace with themselves. My husband had to say some really difficult things to me, to make clear that there had to be a path to better. For my sake more than anyone else’s. My beliefs could have become a negatively reinforcing cycle. Vulnerability and openness have led me to take a lot of damage over the course of my life, but even though I felt that I ended up alone with myself in my worst moments, I am grateful to every friend, every author, every person who I opened myself up to so that they could still be part of my internal victories. Such a paradox.